product and textile design
POTLI
elevating your outdoor eating experience
The final iteration of this design is a textile piece with a bent-metal tray that can accommodate lunch-boxes for easy transportation. The way the fabric is designed is such that it unwraps easily on the user's lap and serves as an elegant "lap cloth" with a metal tray on top.
- methodsConcept Development / Observational Studies / Contextual Inquiries / User Testing / Rapid Prototyping/Material Studies
- technical processesWater-Jet Cutting / Laser Cutting / 3-D Modelling / Sewing / Metal Finishing / Acrylic Bending
project prompt
We were asked to explore the concept of a family of products. Through my initial explorations with materials, scale and form, I arrived at this concept which places "solo, outdoor eating experience" as the unifying theme.
design features
The final prototype was made out of a felt and bent aluminum tray. I would've like to have used a more sustainable textile, but as student my finances were a bit tight. I'd like the next iterations to be made out of textile that is more sustainable than felt.
initial exploration: moodboards and abstract sketches
I wanted to work with scale and contrasting materials to challenge my fabrication skills. I used moodboards and conceptual, abstract sketching to discover ideas and necessary constraints that would drive my process forward.
prototyping and research
moment of discovery
The initial mood board, sketching and mockups lead to a simple yet defining moment where I had a piece of cloth sandwiched between an acrylic plate. Failure is a constant part of the design process. For me, it was the inability to narrow down on a potential idea. But it was this moment that led to a pivoting point in my design. I was just playing around, trying to explore how we might integrate and connect a soft material with a hard one. And as I was sitting with this odd tacky object and playing with it, I wrapped the cloth up and held it like a bag. And that simple act led to the idea of exploring catering, plates, eating habits, and how this prototype would be a perfect-sized bag to carry my food in.
I decided to design a family of products that would include a wrapping cloth, a flat tray, designed specifically for the widely used lunch boxes by pyrex. This helped me finalize the dimensional constraints for the design of the lap tray and the cloth. To ensure the cloth fold pattern was intuitive, I conducted user testing during the prototyping stage. I also measured and observed the average lunch item and the preferable size for a lunch bag.
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